Malcom Fraser "There are no limits to which the opposition will not go to demonstrate inhumanity to people with a significantly demonstrated need. [This is] inhumanity demonstrated against some of the most vulnerable people in the world. This is a total reversal of some of the values Australia had become renowned for. It saddens me to think that the Liberal party, and as I understand it also the Labor party, are thinking of additional ways to make their policies more brutal. The policies have become so unreal, so inhumane overall, it’s very hard to look at just one aspect, which increases the uncaring nature of the opposition. The terrible thing is that the opposition and the government both believe they can win votes by behaving in this way. I don’t really believe they can. I believe these steps have gone so far that people will be looking for alternatives to voting for either Liberal or Labor. Neither of them deserves to win. Neither of them deserves to govern. Certainly neither of them deserves to have control of both houses of parliament. I hope it [the policy] would [be subject to a high court challenge] I can’t make a judgment to the law in relation to that, but one of the aspects of the policy as I heard it was that there’s not going to be any appeal, that one person is going to make a judgment that asylum seeker’s claims are valid or invalid, and as I heard it that was the end of it. No appeal. No judicial review. So the Liberal party, having demonstrated its intent, I would have thought that they would be very careful in the people they chose to make that decision, so that they would have a very large number judged not to be asylum seekers. We are not only breaking all the common rules of decency, we’ve breached our obligations under the refugee convention. We’ve breached our obligations under UNHCR. Any idea of duty of care to the vulnerable is totally out of the window. I know that from correspondence I get, and people speaking to me from overseas, that this has already damaged Australia’s reputation and it will take decades to recover." Malcolm Fraser was speaking to Oliver Laughland
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 07:21:02 +0000
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